English prof: I was not offended by anything Rookie or you had said. My comment about lying was written with a smile since many sportsmen have expressed doubts about what we biologists say. But I often wonder what they think our incentive would be to fib. I think it was somewhat unusual for an angler (Rookie) to rush right out and try a stream that I had mentioned in passing. Most anglers don't seem to trust biologists enough to do that. That having been said, my having mentioned Pine shoud not suggest that its private riparian lands are open to fishing. I would recommend seeking permission from landowners.

Well, secret's out! lol I should note the lone trout I caught came after two hours of endlessly catching and releasing chubs. if anyone else wants to go through that to catch one trout (even a really nice one), be my guest. I had nothing better to do

Seriously though, I agree, I have no idea why it's not more well-known. didn't even see a footprint and I was in a public park! Even if it was more well known, I think the population would be just fine, since, as Mike said, most of Pine is on private land.

I guess everyone in that area just fishes French, Valley, or Pickering.

A better question is, with the development that has occured in that area, how were they and ones in other Chesco streams not wiped out?

Mike, as I said, I had nothing better to do! So why not go explore a "new" stream? especially one that flows through a park. i have done tons of exploring this summer, you just gave me one more place

Valley Creek is a limestone spring-fed creek, which naturally carries colder water that supports a trout stream without stocking. French Creek drains miles of forested and protected lands that provide cold headwaters and tributaries for trout sustainability. Pickering Creek has a continuous riparian buffer, less developed watershed, and some healthy tributaries that allows for trout sustainability and reproduction. The Pickering Creek watershed also has no malls, shopping centers, or large commercial developments. This helps wild brown trout. Each of these waters also has special regulation sections which helps prevent anglers from taking all the fish.

Even though the watersheds are naturally healthy, it still amazes me how humans have managed to do so much with the land yet the trout survive. by doing so much with the land I mean not making huge cities like Philly but building towns, highways, farming, etc. Really makes you wonder how good the trout fishing was before any of that stuff was built, if wild trout can still be found in healthy populations. Of course it was brookies back then, not browns.

Chester County is pretty overlooked IMO. People look at Lancaster farmed areas, Philly, and Delaware county, and think all of extreme SE PA including chester county as just urbanized areas and streams that are too warm for trout. they see Valley and think it is just a huge exception. But there are quite a few wild trout streams, brown and brook, that are just completely overlooked because people think for some reason all of the little streams in Chester County are dead like most of the ones to the east and west.

chuckytown wrote:Valley Creek is a limestone spring-fed creek, which naturally carries colder water that supports a trout stream without stocking. French Creek drains miles of forested and protected lands that provide cold headwaters and tributaries for trout sustainability. Pickering Creek has a continuous riparian buffer, less developed watershed, and some healthy tributaries that allows for trout sustainability and reproduction. The Pickering Creek watershed also has no malls, shopping centers, or large commercial developments. This helps wild brown trout. Each of these waters also has special regulation sections which helps prevent anglers from taking all the fish.

I would be amazed if French Creek had a decent population of wild fish. It has some holdovers, but not many.

It is sourced by a top release dam in a warmwater lake, and has a few dams along it. The FFO stretch of french creek has those regs due to a landowner agreement.

Rookie wrote:Even though the watersheds are naturally healthy, it still amazes me how humans have managed to do so much with the land yet the trout survive. by doing so much with the land I mean not making huge cities like Philly but building towns, highways, farming, etc. Really makes you wonder how good the trout fishing was before any of that stuff was built, if wild trout can still be found in healthy populations. Of course it was brookies back then, not browns.

Chester County is pretty overlooked IMO. People look at Lancaster farmed areas, Philly, and Delaware county, and think all of extreme SE PA including chester county as just urbanized areas and streams that are too warm for trout. they see Valley and think it is just a huge exception. But there are quite a few wild trout streams, brown and brook, that are just completely overlooked because people think for some reason all of the little streams in Chester County are dead like most of the ones to the east and west.

Nearby berks county has plenty of wild trout opportunities, so I don't think it's that exceptional that chester has some. The geography and populations are similar.

Mike wrote:English prof: PFBC biologists know of many more wild trout waters than those that appear on the lists.

Mike, Could you explain a little more how this works? When you find a wild trout stream, how is the decision made whether or not to put in on the reproduction list?

And is there more than one list, i.e. a published reproduction list vs a non-published list?

I would think that DEP, EPA and other agencies involved in environmental protection, and university researchers etc. would want to have access to information on ALL streams that are found by the PFBC to support wild trout.

I have a friend that works as an engineer on the gas lines up north, and he said that he has a list of streams with wild fish. All I know is that they need to take special precautions around these streams.

Would this be the natural reproduction list? If so, it may be terribly insufficient.

I do know of one stream, not on the state list, that has a great brookie population (although probably not Class A). A few years ago they started building a large development in the watershed and I believe the DEP made the developers take extra measures to protect the trout. They had to put up silt fences everywhere and were not allowed to build an exit road where they wanted to.

Giventoflyfish wrote:I'm confused on Pickering though. Are people saying there still are trout in there? I would have expected everyone to have taken them out by now. Maybe I'll do a stream walkthrough to check.

Even on the most heavily pressured streams, I would be absolutely shocked if harvest were the reason for a lack of trout.

Giventoflyfish wrote:I'm confused on Pickering though. Are people saying there still are trout in there? I would have expected everyone to have taken them out by now. Maybe I'll do a stream walkthrough to check.

Even on the most heavily pressured streams, I would be absolutely shocked if harvest were the reason for a lack of trout.

I am still catch and releasing trout from the Pickering. I have been catching 10-14" tiger trout, a 7 inch wild brown, a couple of other browns. The water's clear. The trout are cautious, but there. This was yesterday above the Pickering road bridge, below the Merlin Road bridge.

I caught some rainbows several weeks ago at the lower Pickering Road bridge, and saw more. I asked permission to get access to parts of the stream I used to play in as a kid. The DHALO section was active as recently as two weeks ago.

As far as being close to Philly, this morning I caught 6-7 stock rainbows and browns in the pools below the Ridley Creek FFO section, one was only 5-6" long rainbow. Odd. Plus, I can still catch trout in Chester Creek, and I saw some larger trout in the DHALO section of West Valley Creek. This season's been exceptional to trout fishing.